Southern Utah University’s opera group has opened their show “Carmen” after a rehearsal process that began in September. Showings began on Wednesday, March 27, and will run through March 30.
“Carmen” is a French opera that follows a young man named Don José, who is seduced by a woman named Carmen into abandoning his duties.
The team behind “Carmen” spent the entire first semester of their rehearsal process learning the music for the show before bringing it to the stage in January. While the cast generally feels as though the extra rehearsal time has paid off, it was not without its challenges.
“One of the biggest challenges for me was I kind of started to get sick of it,” said Lehi Moran, who plays Don José. “Now that we’re running and doing it, I’ve been rejuvenated. But before that, it was a little bit of a struggle to go to rehearsal every single day and work on the same thing.”
While the SUU Opera program normally does one show each semester, the scope of “Carmen” has limited them to only one show this entire academic year instead.
“It’s massive, and the whole thing is in French,” said Moran. “The past shows we’ve done here at SUU that I’ve been in have been originally composed in other languages, but we did them in English.”
“Carmen” has been a large collaboration across many departments at SUU. The show is directed and produced by Carol Ann Modesitt with music directed by Andrew Briggs. It is conducted by Xun Sun and features translations by Douglas Ipson. It is choreographed by dance professor Nancy Dobbs Owen.
“We’ve gotten some children to be in the chorus from the community,” said Moran. “I think it’s just cool to see this huge involvement within not just the school but also the community.”
“Carmen” is free to SUU students and will also be livestreamed.
Author: Tessa Cheshire
Photos courtesy of SUU music department
arts@suunews.net
